"I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance infect and pollute others, and so cause their death as a result of my negligence."

"This is said as an admonition and encouragement against fear and a disgraceful flight to which the devil would tempt us so that we would disregard God’s command in our dealings with our neighbor and so we would fall into sin on the left hand.
     "Others sin on the right hand. They are much too rash and reckless, tempting God and disregarding everything which might counteract death and the plague. They disdain the use of medicines; they do not avoid places and persons infected by the plague, but lightheartedly make sport of it and wish to prove how independent they are. They say that it is God’s punishment; if he wants to protect them he can do so without medicines or our carefulness. This is not trusting God but tempting him. God has created medicines and provided us with intelligence to guard and take good care of the body so that we can live in good health.
     "If one makes no use of intelligence or medicine when he could do so without detriment to his neighbor, such a person injures his body and must beware lest he become a suicide in God’s eyes. By the same reasoning a person might forego eating and drinking, clothing and shelter, and boldly proclaim his faith that if God wanted to preserve him from starvation and cold, he could do so without food and clothing. Actually that would be suicide. It is even more shameful for a person to pay no heed to his own body and to fail to protect it against the plague the best he is able, and then to infect and poison others who might have remained alive if he had taken care of his body as he should have. He is thus responsible before God for his neighbor’s death and is a murderer many times over. Indeed, such people behave as though a house were burning in the city and nobody were trying to put the fire out. Instead they give leeway to the flames so that the whole city is consumed, saying that if God so willed, he could save the city without water to quench the fire.
     "No, my dear friends, that is no good. Use medicine; take potions which can help you; fumigate house, yard, and street; shun persons and places wherever your neighbor does not need your presence or has recovered, and act like a man who wants to help put out the burning city. What else is the epidemic but a fire which instead of consuming wood and straw devours life and body? You ought to think this way: 'Very well, by God’s decree the enemy has sent us poison and deadly offal. Therefore I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine, and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance infect and pollute others, and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me and I have done what he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs me, however, I shall not avoid place or person but will go freely,' as stated above. See, this is such a God-fearing faith because it is neither brash nor foolhardy and does not tempt God."

     Martin Luther, "Whether one may flee from a deadly plague" (Open letter to John Hess, November 1527), trans. Carl J. Schindler, LW 43, Devotional writings II (Philadelphia:  Fortress Press, 1968), 131-132.  Cf. LCC 18, Luther:  Letters of spiritual counsel, trans. Theodore J. Tappert (Philadelphia:  The Westminster Press, 1955), 241-242.  =WA 23, 363-367 (Drucke).  p. 132:

If the people in a city were to show themselves bold in their faith when a neighbor’s need so demands, and cautious when no emergency exists, and if everyone would help ward off contagion as best he can, then the death toll would indeed be moderate. But if some are too panicky and desert their neighbors in their plight, and if some are so foolish as not to take precautions but aggravate the contagion, then the devil has a heyday and many will die.

Dr. Larry Chapp on Dorothy Day

"many of [the many Catholic Worker houses and farms still in existence] really no longer identify as Catholic in any meaningful way. They continue to invoke the legacy of Dorothy, but in a very theologically attenuated form. Her work for 'social justice' is viewed as something separate from her unfortunate Catholicism, which is precisely why I eschew the use of the term 'social justice' as a descriptor for her life and work, since it is now a term that has been co-opted by secularized Leftists and used as code for an antinomian individualism, especially in matters of human sexuality.
     "As a Catholic Worker I encounter other Catholic Workers from time to time and inevitably the topic of Day’s Catholicism comes up in conversation. And more often than not, the morally and theologically conservative nature of her Catholicism is dismissed as merely the result of her inculturation into the form of Catholicism that was dominant at that time. 'But,' so the narrative continues, 'if she were alive today she would be more liberal and progressive in her theology.' Thus does her Catholicism get mentioned but only to the extent that it can be quickly domesticated through careful transposition into the safe bromides of modern Leftist piety. But Dorothy Day is in good company on that score since they make the same domesticating move with regard to Christ himself."

     Larry Chapp, reviewing Terrence C. Wright, Dorothy Day:  an introduction to her life and thought (San Francisco:  Ignatius Press, 2018), Catholic World Report, 17 March 2020.

"at least spiritually": that other extra Catholicum ("Since I cannot now receive Thee sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart")

"My Jesus, I believe that Thou art present in the Blessed Sacrament.  I love Thee above all things and I desire Thee in my soul.  Since I cannot now receive Thee sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart.  As though Thou wert already there, I embrace Thee and unite myself wholly to Thee; permit not that I should ever be separated from Thee."

     St. Alphonsus Liguori, "Atto per la comunione spirituale," in "Della communione spirituale," in Visita al SS. Sacramento ed a Maria SS. per ciascun giorno del mese (1745), according to the Intratext version of the Opera Omnia Italiane, which reproduces the original as follows:

Gesù mio, credo che voi state nel SS. Sacramento. V'amo sopra ogni cosa e vi desidero nell'anima mia. Giacché ora non posso ricevervi sacramentalmente, venite almeno spiritualmente al cuore mio. Come già venuto io v'abbraccio, e tutto mi unisco a voi.  Non permettete ch'io m'abbia mai a separare da voi.

Cf. the slightly different version in this older, printed edition of the Opere ascetische:

Gesù mio, credo che voi state nel SS. Sacramento. V'amo sopra ogni cosa e vi desidero nell'anima mia. Giacchè ora non posso ricevervi sacramentalmente venite almeno spiritualmente nel mio cuore. Come già venuto io v'abbraccio e tutto mi unisco a voi, non permettete ch'io m'abbia mai a separare da voi.

     On the assumption that the above is the original, which, I suppose, it might not be (though it ain't St. Richard of Chichester!), here is the beginnings of

A Selective Timeline of Catholic Development (In Progress)

• 1272 September/1273 December (Weisheipl, Friar Thomas d'Aquino:  his life, thought, and work (1974), 361).  Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae 80.11, Whether it is lawful to abstain altogether from communion? (FEDP, all emphasis mine):  "Now it is clear that all are bound to eat it at least spiritually [(omnes tenentur saltem spiritualiter manducare)], because this is to be incorporated in Christ, as was said above [III.73.3.ad 1]. Now spiritual eating [(Spiritualis . . . manducatio)] comprises the desire or yearning for receiving this sacrament [(includit votum seu desiderium percipiendi hoc sacramentum)], as was said above [1.ad 3; 2]. Therefore, a man cannot be saved without desiring to receive this sacrament [(sine voto percipiendi hoc sacramentum)].  Now a desire would be vain except it were fulfilled when opportunity presented itself. Consequently, it is evident that a man is bound to receive this sacrament" (Resp.).  "This sacrament is said not to be as necessary as [(non esse necessitatis sicut)] Baptism, with regard to children, who can be saved without the Eucharist, but not without the sacrament of Baptism: both, however, are of necessity with regard to adults [(Quantum vero ad adultos, utrumque est necessitatis)]" (ad 2).  (The only other occurrence of the phrase "saltem spirit(u)aliter" in Aquinas, at Super Gal. c.3 l.4 no. 138, is non-Eucharistic.)
• 1551 October 11.  Council of Trent, sess. 13 (Decree on the most holy sacrament of the eucharist), c. 8 ("On the use of this wonderful sacrament"):  "With respect to the use, however, our fathers rightly and wisely distinguished three types of reception of this holy sacrament.  For they taught that some, being sinners, receive it only sacramentally [(sacramentaliter duntaxat)]; others receive it only spiritually [(tantum spiritualiter)], namely those who have the desire to eat the heavenly food that is set before them [(voto propositum illum coelestum panem edentes)], and so experience its effect and benefit [(fructum eius et utilitatem)] by a lively faith working through love; the third group, who receive both sacramentally and spiritually [(sacramentaliter simul et spiritaliter)], are those who so test and train themselves beforehand, that they approach this divine table clothed in a wedding garment."  Canon 8 "on the most holy sacrament of the eucharist":  "If anyone says that Christ, when presented in the eucharist, is consumed only spiritually, and not also sacramentally and really [(spiritualiter tantum manducari et non etiam sacramentaliter ac realiter)]:  let him be anathema."  Canon 11:  "If anyone says that faith alone [(solam fidem) and not also sacramental confession (confessionem sacramentalem)] is sufficient preparation for receiving the sacrament of the most holy eucharist:  let him be anathema."

A Selective Timeline of Non-Catholic Appropriation (In Progress)

• 1662, Church of England:  The book of common-prayer (1662), underscoring mine:  "But if a man, either by reason of extremity of sickness, or for want of warning in due time to the Curate, or for lack of company to receive with him, or by any other just impediment, do not receive the Sacrament of Christs body and blood, the Curate shall instruct him, that if he do truly repent him of his sins, and stedfastly believe that Jesus Christ hath suffered death upon the cross for him, and shed his bloud for his redemption, earnestly remembring the benefits he hath thereby, and giving him hearty thanks therefore, he doth eat and drink the body and bloud of our Saviour Christ profitably to his souls health, although he do not receive the Sacrament with his mouth."  Note the lack of an explicitly sacramental intentionality (absent also from the prayer by Liguori, though present in some testimonies to the (post-Tridentine?) tradition out of which it comes, IF the article on "Communion spirituelle" in the Dictionnaire de spiritualité—which, however, includes a number of pre-Tridentine quotations which are consistent with the 1662 BCP here—is any indication).  Here the intentionality is the cross and its benefits, not the sacrament or real presence.
• 1871, Anglican advocacy:  The path of holiness:  a first book of prayers for the young compiled by a priest, ed. T. T. Carter (London, Oxford, & Cambridge:  Rivingtons, 1871), no page number ("come spiritually into my heart").  According to [1874], below, "one of the publications of the most advanced Romanizing party in England" (2).
• [1874], Anglican opposition:  Church Association, Diocese of Toronto, Church of England, Ritualists in our Sunday schools:  What do they teach?, Church Association of the Diocese of Toronto occasional paper no. 3 (Toronto, [1874]), 6 ("come spiritually into my heart").  Same thing here.
• 1876, Anglican (Reformed Episcopal) opposition:  Senex, "Lecture delivered before the pastor and congregation of the Reformed Episcopal Church, Ottawa:  shewing the reasons for the formation of the church and where the Church of England has fallen from the faith, has adopted and teaches Roman Catholic ritual, doctrine and practices" ([Ottawa], 1876), 17 ("come spiritually into my heart").
• 1928, Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America:  The book of common prayer (New York:  Oxford University Press, 1938 [1928]), 323, underscoring mine:  "But if a man, either by reason of extremity of sickness, or for want of warning in due time to the Minister, or by any other just impediment, do not receive the Sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood, the Minister shall instruct him, that if he do truly repent him of his sins, and stedfastly believe that Jesus Christ hath suffered death upon the Cross for him, and shed his Blood for his redemption, earnestly remembering the benefits he hath thereby, and giving him hearty thanks therefor, he doth eat and drink the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ profitably to his soul's health, although he do not receive the Sacrament with his mouth."
• 1951, Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America:  The armed forces prayer book (New York : Published for the Armed Forces Division of the Protestant Episcopal Church by the Church Pension Fund, 1951), 29, under the heading "Spiritual communion" (pp. 27-29):  "In union, O Lord, with the faithful at every altar of Thy Church, where the Holy Eucharist is now being celebrated, I desire to offer Thee praise and thanksgiving.  I present to Thee my soul and body with the earnest wish that I may always be united to Thee.  And since I can not now receive Thee sacramentally, I beseech Thee to come spiritually into my heart.  I unite myself to Thee, and embrace Thee with all of the affections of my soul.  Let nothing ever separate Thee from me.  May I live and die in Thy love.  Amen."
• 2019, Anglican Church in North America:  Occasional prayer no. 106 "For spiritual communion," Book of common prayer . . . according to the use of the Anglican Church in North America (Huntington Beach, CA:  Anglican Liturgy Press, 2019), 677:  "Dear Jesus, I believe that you are truly present in the Holy Sacrament.  I love you above all things, and I desire to possess you within my soul.  And since I cannot now receive you sacramentally, I beseech you to come spiritually into my heart.  I unite myself to you, together with all your faithful people [gathered around every altar of your Church], and I embrace you with all the affections of my soul.  Never permit me to be separated from you.  Amen."  And from p. 242:  "If [the dying person] desires to receive, but by reason of extreme sickness is unable to consume either element, the minister is to assure the person that all the benefits of Holy Communion are conveyed, even though the elements are not received with the mouth."

A Selective Bibliography (In Progress)

• Bazelaire, Louis de.  "Communion spirituelle."  Dictionnaire de spiritualité 2.2 (1953), cols. 1294-1300.
• Blankenhorn, O.P., Bernhard.  "A short history and theology of spiritual communion."  Church Life Journal.  8 April 2020.  "spiritually eating Christ only makes sense if its finality is sacramental reception. These spiritual gifts do not operate in parallel fashion, for one is ordered to the other, just as the manna in the desert was ordered to the manifestation of the Incarnation and the institution of the Eucharist."  And "Augustine, Thomas and other saints laid the doctrinal foundation for a practice that gained popularity starting in early modernity, that of making a 'spiritual communion.' This form of liturgical and private piety grew quickly in the 12th and 13th centuries, among the laity, but also in monasteries. It continued to blossom through early modernity. Modern writers drew from the impulse given at the Council of Trent. Spiritual masters including St. Teresa of Avila, St. Francis de Sales, and St. Alphonsus Liguori have given this practice particular attention."

Quarantine as cloister: "'experienced populations,' well-organized institutional responses, . . . [integrally] resourceful strategies for survival"

Times of Israel

"One of the chapters of [St. Charles Borromeo’s] Constitutiones [et decreta de cura pestilentiae] is devoted to spiritual activities in public administrative spaces and closed-up homes.  In it, the clergy are told to prepare each household for the devotional activities devised for the extraordinary circumstances by teaching them a variety of prayers, litanies, and Psalms ahead of the quarantine.  During the quarantine, bells across the parish were to be rung seven times a day, approximately every two hours, to call the households to prayer.  Once begun, the bell would be rung again every quarter hour, until the fourth bell signals an end to the hour of prayer.  While the bell rings,

Litanies or supplications will be chanted or recited at the direction of the Bishop.  This will be performed in such a way that one group sings from the windows or the doors of their homes, and then another group sings and responds in turn.

To ensure that these prayers are carried out properly, the decree continues, a member of the clergy or someone trained in these prayers (possibly the head of the household) should also come to a window or door at the appointed times to direct the prayers and stir up enthusiasm for this devotion. . . .

     "Borromeo’s directive to sing at doors and windows was evidently put into practice and impressed a number of chroniclers.  In his Relatione verissima, Paolo Bisciola reports:

[W]hen the plague began to grow, this practice [of singing litanies in public [procession]] was interrupted, so as not to allow the congregations to provide [the plague with] more fuel.  The orations did not stop, however, because each person stood in his house at the window or door and made them from there. . . .  Just think, in walking around Milan, one heard nothing but song, veneration of God, and supplication to the saints, such that one almost wished for these tribulations to last longer.

. . . 

It was a sight to see, when all the inhabitants of this populous city, numbering little short of three hundred thousand souls, united to praise God at one and the same time, sending up together an harmonious voice of supplication for deliverance from their distress.  Milan might at this time have been not unfitly compared to a cloister of religious of both sexes serving God in the inclosure [sic] of their cells, an image of the heavenly Jerusalem filled with the praises of the angelic hosts.

     "We can imagine the astonishment of these chroniclers, hearing the disembodied voices emerging from isolated homes all around, aggregating and blanketing an entire parish in song. . . . .

". . . As Randolph Starn writes, 'the chronic presence of disease suggests that we should not think of medieval and early modern societies as caught in the grip of plague-year panics or as waiting passively to be delivered by [the] modern medicine [of the future].  The newer accounts [of plague history] speak of "experienced populations," of well-organized institutional responses, of resourceful strategies for survival'."

     Remi Chiu, “Singing on the street and in the home in times of pestilence:  lessons from the 1576-78 plague of Milan,” in Domestic devotions in early modern Italy, ed. Maya Corry, Marco Faini,and Alessia Meneghin (Leiden:  Brill, 2018), 38-39, 42-43 (27-44).

The ancient and traditional Collect for the Second Sunday of Lent, just in time for a time of coronavirus

Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves:  Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through.

Almighty God, who seest that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves:  Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through.

     Collect for the Third Sunday of Lent, BCP (1979 Contemporary and Traditional).

Deus, qui conspicis omni nos virtute destitui:  interius exteriusque custodi: ut et ab omnibus adversitatibus muniamur in corpore, et a pravis cogitationibus mundemur in mente. Per.

O God, who seest that we are wholly destitute of strength, keep us within and without:  that we may be defended in body from all adversity:  and cleansed in mind from evil thoughts.  Through.

     Collect for the Second Sunday of Lent, Missale Romanum (1962), as translated in the Baronius Press edition of 2009.

Almighty God, who seest that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves:  Keep us both outwardly in our bodies, and inwardly in our souls; that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through.

     Collect for the Second Sunday of Lent, BCP (1928).

Almighty God, who seest that we have no power of our selves to keep our selves:  Keep us both outwardly in our bodies, and inwardly in our souls; that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul, through.

     Collect for the Second Sunday of Lent, BCP (1662).

Deus, qui conspicis omni nos virtute destitui:  interius exteriusque custodi; ut et ab omnibus adversitatibus muniamur in corpore, et a pravis cogitationibus mundemur in mente. Per.

O God, who seest that we are wholly destitute of strength, protect us inwardly and outwardly, so that our bodies may be safeguarded from all misfortune and our minds cleansed from evil thoughts:  through.

     Collect for the Second Sunday of Lent, Missale Romanum (Tridentine), as translated in the Sheed & Ward Latin-English version of 1949.

Almightye God, whiche doest see that we haue no power of oureselues to helpe oureselues:  keepe thou us both outwardly in oure bodies, and inwardly in oure soules; that we maye be defended from all aduersities whiche maye happen to the body, and from all euel thoughtes which maye assault and hurte the soule; through.

     Collect for the Second Sunday of Lent, BCP (1547), as reproduced in the Everyman's Library edition.

     This (Corpus orationum no. 1494 =Bruylants, vol. 2, no. 313) was the traditional collect for the Second Sunday of Lent (no. 202) from the (at the latest) early 8th-century Gregorian Sacramentary.  It seems to have been dropped from the current Missal:

Deus qui conspicis omni nos uirtute destitui, interius exteriusque custodi, ut et ab omnibus aduersitatibus muniamur in corpore, et a prauis cogitationibus mundemur in mente. per.

Deus qui conspicis omni nos virtute destitui, interius exteriusque custodi, ut et ab omnibus adversitatibus muniamur in corpore, et a pravis cogitationibus mundemur in mente. per.

     I have not been able to verify that the photograph is indeed of a priest carrying communion to the sick.